It was not long before Sussex were trying to purge another miserable Edgbaston experience from their system yesterday.

Less than an hour after succumbing to their heftiest Championship defeat for nearly seven years by an innings and 34 runs, the players were back on the practice ground.

But these were no naughty boy nets, as coach Mark Robinson revealed afterwards.

He said: "I haven't had to dictate to them as a coach. They want to work and train and put things right.

"We have been outplayed. I can't knock our effort and the way we prepared but we just weren't good enough executing our skills.

"But in these situations it's how you bounce back and there is too much honesty in our dressing room for us not to respond positively to this defeat."

The county slumped to only their sixth Championship loss in the last two years just before lunch after they were dismissed for 206 in their second innings.

It is now 25 years since their last win at Edgbaston and they have only won once there since 1961.

Sussex prepared differently to try and end their Birmingham jinx including changing their hotel but it made no difference.

What was decisive was how Warwickshire exploited a green, seaming pitch far better than Sussex did.

Robinson added: "Our team are used to flat wickets where Rana gets the ball to reverse and Mushy is always in the game.

"The groundsman said at the start that it was a three-day wicket and we let them get 100 runs too many in their first innings. Our disciplines as a bowling unit weren't there and that is something we will have to address."

Recent history suggests that Sussex generally react positively to setbacks as hefty as this.

Last season they lost to Warwickshire in similar circumstances and bounced back to leave title rivals Lancashire nine down and hanging on in their next game before annihilating Durham by an innings the following week.

But Robinson or skipper Chris Adams will not be fooled. What will concern them above all else is that suddenly Sussex are picking up injuries.

They were missing Mike Yardy, Jason Lewry and Luke Wright here while Chris Nash is a doubt for tomorrow's Friends Provident Trophy game after injuring his shoulder in the field on Thursday.

Resources are going to be stretched when you only carry a squad of 19 players. Yardy and Wright are definite non-starters against Kent next week but Robinson says Lewry has a good chance' of playing.

On the pitch, the most worrying aspect of yesterday's performance was another abject surrender by the lower order.

Opener Carl Hopkinson had shown that it was possible to survive and score runs. He grafted his way to a confidence-boosting half-century and when Murray Goodwin was helping him add 60 for the third wicket Sussex still had a chance.

But once Goodwin went in the fifth over of the day you always sensed that another wicket was not too far away.

Even so, when they reached 182-5 Sussex should have had at least made Warwickshire bat again. Instead, they lost four wickets in three overs.

Sussex lost their last seven for 52 in the first innings and 7-74 yesterday and the batsmen will welcome the prospect of a trip to Canterbury next week where conditions should enable them to rebuild their confidence.